Developing tunable optical analogues using nematic liquid crystals

Tiago D. Ferreira; Nuno A. Silva; Ariel Guerreiro

doi:10.1117/12.2526408

3 October 2019 Developing tunable optical analogues using nematic liquid crystals

Tiago D. Ferreira, Nuno A. Silva, Ariel Guerreiro

Proceedings Volume 11207, Fourth International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics; 1120709 (2019) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2526408
Event: IV International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics (AOP 2019), 2019, Lisbon, Portugal

Abstract

This paper proposes the use of nematic liquid crystals as tunable setups to implement optical analogues of physical systems and phenomena that are hard or even impossible to study experimentally under controlled conditions. Optical analogues share the same physical model with the systems that they emulate and can be understood as a form of physical simulations or optical computation. However, their success relies not only on the existence of media with optical properties capable of emulating the models associated with the original system as they interact with light, but also on the possibility of being able to tune those properties in order to cover the multitude of conditions or range of parameters. In particular, the Schr¨odinger-Newton model is a good target for this kind of studies as it can describe a plethora of different phenomena in physics and can be implemented in the laboratory using optical analogues, usually using thermo-optical materials. However, such materials have limitations, and in this work we propose nematic liquid crystals as a more advantageous alternative. We discuss how nematic liquid crystals can be used as a tunable support medium for optical analogues of superfluids by analyzing the dispersion relation of light under specific conditions and using numerical simulations based on GPGPU supercomputing to verify our findings. Extending on this, we explore more direct manifestations of superfluid effects in nematic liquid crystals, such as drag-force cancellation in the superfluid regime and the possibility of creating a roton-minimum in the dispersion relation.

Citation Download Citation

Tiago D. Ferreira, Nuno A. Silva, and Ariel Guerreiro "Developing tunable optical analogues using nematic liquid crystals", Proc. SPIE 11207, Fourth International Conference on Applications of Optics and Photonics, 1120709 (3 October 2019); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2526408

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